Oct 22, 2010

How to Draw Pepe in 10 Easy Steps!

Greetings, Muppet fans! We have an insanely cool treat for you today from our good friend James Carroll. James has had a silent hand in The Muppet Mindset since day one. He designed the incredible logo used in our header on the site, he has provided countless hi-res Muppet images for articles, and now he's designed an incredible, interactive experience for Muppet fans. So, without further ado, The Muppet Mindset proudly presents...

How to Draw Pepe in 10 Easy Steps!

(An Unofficial Guide by James V. Carroll)

James V. Carroll - Pepe is one of the most notoriously difficult Muppets to draw, yet his drawn image is heavily featured on many official products these days such as t-shirts, travel mugs, and comic books. I became aware of the many subtleties of his construction several years ago while working on Palisades Toys’ unreleased tutu clad Pepe action figure. It appears that many of today’s artists have been using the original figure as the maquette instead investigating the beautifully constructed puppet. I have seen various photos and style sheets of the character, but haven’t seen an official guide. There hasn’t yet been a truly definitive representation of everyone’s favorite king prawn.

I recently spent a day doodling to devise an iconic Pepe likeness akin to the famous Kermit head emblem. This 10-step tutorial isn’t perfect. It’s merely one devoted fan’s simplified line art translation of the puppet’s portrait into a character logo. Remember–this is just a guide. Get creative, enjoy, and submit your Pepe art to The Muppet Mindset (ryguy102390@gmail.com) and Ryan will post the results!

(Helpful Tips: A degree of symmetry is employed for this sort of logo, but complete perfection will result in a lifeless prawn so don’t be afraid to go a little off the diagram to tweak things like eye and pupil placement. The antennas are evenly placed on this model in order to contrast the wild, stringy hair feathers. Refrain from being too literal with the hair giving him a thick mop-top. The Muppets have elegant simplicity to the design. Less is always more.)

How incredible is that? The entire Flash setup, the Pepe design, and everything in that tutorial was done by James. I am beyond honored to host this beautiful piece of work and I sincerely hope James has something else up his amazingly talented sleeves for us soon. Oh, and by the way, Muppets Studio folks, if you're reading this... hire James Carroll! Thank you, thank you, James for this awesome, awesome post.

And like James said earlier, do attempt Pepe for yourself and send in your drawings and we'll host them all on here!

We've got another hugely exciting surprise from James coming in tomorrow's post--so be on the lookout for that! The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier

Awesome stuff! I'm a cartoonist/animator myself, and I must say I'm impressed by both the clearness of the tutorial and James's command over Flash. The Muppets Studio should definately hire you (and pay you well) to make more of these!

Thanks for posting this, Ryan! I've wanted to contribute something for a while and figured out this was a good fit. Freaky blinking Muppets and all, hehe. Was on the fence about that for a while, but I tend to favor a bit of the creepy.

@ Max...wow, you beat me to it by a whole year and managed to draw the whole prawn! Fantastic!

I'm up for something else down the line. And thanks for providing the perfect sound bite!